"Fun-et-ic" Spelling

Becca is learning to spell things phonetically. Today, she announced, "Look, mama! I spelled 'actually!'"


Here is a closer look:


Can you see it? "Ax - uh - lee"

I love "fun-et-ic" spelling!

B-E-C-C-A

Becca's new favorite skill to practice is spelling. Once she learned all of her consonant and short vowel sounds and figured out how to put them together to sound out words, she quickly discovered that she could turn the skill around and spell words as well.

Last week, I spent an afternoon cleaning out my room, even under my bed, and found a plastic bag full of magnetic letters. I must have hidden them there when we were trying to sell the house and I was attempting to make our kitchen look a little less like an extension of a very disorganized preschool. Anyway, I knew Becca would love the letters, so I brought them downstairs and set them up on the refrigerator. As I suspected, Becca squealed with excitement and began naming and organizing the letters.

Today, as I washed dishes, I noticed her playing with the magnets, and she happily announced, "I wrote your word - M-O-M!" I began asking her if she could write other short-vowel words, occasionally peeking at her to see her progress.
When she finished, I had to take a picture of her work. I can't believe my barely three year old accomplished this without any help from me:
What am I going to do with her next year for preschool, when she can do all of this already?

Ben is Reading??!!

Yesterday, Ben shocked me by attempting to sound out a word. I decided to see just how much he knew...

We began by reviewing letter sounds, focusing on the short vowels in particular. He struggles with the difference between a short "i" and a short "e," and he also mixes up the sounds of "w," "y," and a short "u." As most kids his age do, he also sometimes confuses the letters "b," "d," and "p." Other than that, he knows his letter sounds very well.

So, I used Hannah's old Sing, Spell, Read and Write (SSRW) curriculum to demonstrate how letter sounds go together. It has a song called the "Ferris Wheel Song" that uses short vowel sounds and adds the consonants one and a time. First, it reviews "a, e, i, o, u" and then does "ba, be, bi, bo, bu" and continues for the rest of the letters. Once they master that, they tackle letter blends like "bla, ble, bli, blo, blu" and so on.

Ben and I sang the song for a while, and then I helped him sound out some basic three and four letter words. He did a great job!

Today, I pulled out the very first reader in the SSRW series - "Dad, Sam, and Pat." He actually read the entire story with very little help! I think I am going to see if his preschool teacher will let him do the sight words that the older class learns, since he is definitely ready for them. I cannot believe that my three year old is beginning to read!

Fun With Paint

After postponing the mess for a few too many days, I finally pushed up my sleeves, stripped the kids, and tackled the painting portion of the globe project.

I put the paper mache ball in a basin to keep it from rolling away across our beige carpet as Hannah gobbed on the blue paint. I also gave Ben a sheet of paper to paint so he would not feel left out.

Then, I had a brilliant idea! Ben had studied the color blue (which was the color paint we were using) and the letter "b" this week in preschool, and I had an idea for a project that would incorporate both concepts. I decided also to teach the kids the concept of symmetry.

First, we used a couple of practice pages to learn how to paint on only one half of the paper and then fold the paper in half to create the same pattern on the other side. Next, I folded a piece of paper in half and cut it into the shape of butterfly wings ("b" is for butterfly...). Ben painted a pattern on one wing, and we folded it in half to make the matching wing. We talked about symmetry and how a butterfly has two matching wings that are the same on each side.

When we finished that portion of the lesson, Ben spent the rest of the time just painting a page solid blue. Meanwhile, Hannah worked hard and covered her globe with blue paint.

Once the paint on both projects dried, we moved on to the finishing touches. I helped Ben glue the center of the butterfly wings to his solid blue page. Then, we attached a popsicle stick, colored it brown, and drew a face and antennae to complete Ben's blue, symmetrical butterfly.For the globe, I cut out the shape of North America from craft foam, and we glued it to the globe. We will be using straight pins and little paper strips to label all of the places we discuss, and we will add the rest of the continents as we learn about them in future units.
I am excited by how well both crafts turned out. Maybe I will be a little braver about tackling more fun and messy projects in the future!